Australia's Woodside confronts protests, investor anger at annual meet

By Christine Chen

Climate change activists blew whistles and shouted on Thursday as they disrupted Australian gas producer Woodside Energy's annual general meeting, heckling Chief Executive Meg O’Neill and forcing several suspensions.

Investors also figured in the backlash to Woodside's gas projects and sustainability measures, similar to previous years, with Australian pension funds HESTA and Aware lodging protest votes against its director charged with climate risk oversight.

"I'd ask you to please be respectful of the other actual shareholders in the room who have a keen interest in understanding what we're doing to generate value for them," O'Neill told protesters who interrupted her opening address.

"You should be ashamed!" some of them had yelled.

The whistling and shouting began around 20 minutes into the meeting in the western Australian city of Perth, as O'Neill discussed Woodside’s gas portfolio, its contribution to society and role in meeting energy security and decarbonisation goals.

The behaviour was "unnecessary", Chairman Richard Goyder said.

Event organisers suspended proceedings and tried to drown out the noise by playing promotional videos about the company's energy projects and sponsorship of football club the Fremantle Dockers.

"We have plenty more of these videos we can play," O’Neill added.

O'Neill and Goyder also faced scrutiny from meeting attendees who questioned the company's carbon emissions and the impact of the proposed North West Shelf project extension on nearby Murujuga rock art and sea turtles in the Scott Reef.

A coalition of environmental groups - Go Beyond Gas, Greenpeace and the Conservation Council of WA - also protested outside.

Last year's proceedings featured similar backlash with shareholders rebuking Woodside's emissions plan and activists crashing the meeting due to concerns over the company's pursuit of new gas projects.

The company also greenlit a $17.5-billion liquefied natural gas project at Louisiana in the United States last week, which would take its total LNG output to 24 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) in the next decade, or more than 5% of global supply.

Ahead of the annual meeting, influential proxy adviser Glass Lewis recommended that shareholders block the re-election of independent director Ann Pickard, who chairs the oversight committee on climate risk.

It cited an inadequate response to an "ongoing pattern of significant shareholder opposition to the company’s climate strategy".

The funds HESTA and Aware, as well as Norway’s Storebrand, opposed Pickard’s re-election, while U.S. pension funds CalPERS and CALSTRS voted against director Ben Wyatt.

"The steps taken by Woodside so far fall short of what is needed to position it for the global transition to a low-carbon future and the company needs to do more," HESTA said in a statement.

One-fifth (19.45%) of shareholders voted against Pickard's election, the worst vote on record against a Woodside committee chair, according to the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility.